‘Selling?’ said Shadwell. ‘Perish the thought. I’m giving, Mr Mooney. Your son’s a wise boy. He volunteered your name – and lo and behold, you’ve been selected by computer as the recipient of –’
‘I told you I don’t want it,’ Brendan interrupted, and tried to close the door, but the man already had one foot over the threshold.
‘Please –’ Brendan sighed, ‘– will you just leave me alone? I don’t want your prizes. I don’t want anything.’
‘Well that makes you a very remarkable man,’ the Salesman said, pushing the door wide again. ‘Maybe even unique. There’s really nothing in all the world you want? That’s remarkable.’
Music drifted from the back of the house, a recording of Puccini’s Greatest Hits which Eileen had been given several years ago. She’d scarcely listened to it, but since her death Brendan – who had never stepped inside an opera-house in his life, and was proud of the fact – had become addicted to the Love Duet from Madam Butterfly. If he’d played it once he’d played it a hundred times, and the tears would always come. Now all he wanted to do was get back to the music before it finished. But the Salesman was still pressing his suit.
‘Brendan,’ he said. ‘I may call you Brendan –?’
‘Don’t call me anything.’
The Salesman unbuttoned his jacket.
‘Really, Brendan, we have a great deal to discuss, you and I. Your prize, for one.’
The lining of the jacket scintillated, drawing Brendan’s eye. He’d never in his life seen a fabric its equal.
‘Are you sure there’s nothing you want?’ the Salesman said. ‘Absolutely sure?’
The Love Duet had reached a new plateau, the voices of Butterfly and Pinkerton urging each other on to fresh confessions of pain. Brendan heard, but his attention was increasingly focused on the jacket. And yes, there was something there that he wanted.
Shadwell watched the man’s eyes and saw the flame of desire ignited. It never failed.
‘You do see something, Mr Mooney.’
‘Yes,’ Brendan admitted softly. He saw, and the joy he felt at what he saw made his heavy heart light.
Eileen had said to him once (when they were young, and mortality was just another way to express their devotion to each other): ‘– if I die first, Brendan, I’ll find some way to tell you what Heaven’s like. I swear I will.’ He’d hushed her with kisses then, and said that if she were to die he would die too, of a broken heart.
But he hadn’t died, had he? He’d lived three long, empty months, and more than once in that time he’d remembered her frivolous promise. And now, just as he felt despair would undo him utterly, here on his doorstep was this celestial messenger. An odd choice, perhaps, to appear in the shape of a salesman, but no doubt the Seraphim had their reasons.
‘Do you want what you see, Brendan?’ the visitor asked.
‘Who are you?’ Brendan breathed, awe-struck.
‘My name’s Shadwell.’
‘And you brought this for me?’
‘Of course. But if you accept it, Brendan, you must understand there’ll be a small charge for the service.’
Brendan didn’t take his eyes off the prize the jacket housed. ‘Whatever you say,’ he replied.
‘We may ask for your help, for instance, which you’d be obliged to furnish.’
‘Do angels need help?’
‘Once in a while.’
‘Then of course,’ said Brendan. ‘I’d be honoured.’
‘Good.’ The Salesman smiled. ‘Then please –’ he opened the jacket a little wider, ‘– help yourself.’
Brendan knew how the letter from Eileen would smell and feel long before he had it in his hands. It did not disappoint him. It was warm, as he’d expected, and the scent of flowers lingered about it. She’d written it in a garden, no doubt; in the paradise garden.
‘So, Mr Mooney. We have a deal, do we?’
The Love Duet had ended; the house behind Brendan was silent. He held the letter close to his chest, still fearful that this was all a dream, and he’d wake to find himself empty-handed.
‘Whatever you want,’ he said, desperate that this salvation not be snatched from him.
‘Sweetness and light,’ came the smiling reply. ‘That’s all a wise man ever wants, isn’t it? Sweetness and light.’
Brendan was only half-listening. He ran his fingers back and forth over the letter. His name was on the front, in Eileen’s cautious hand.
‘So tell me, Mr Mooney –’ the Seraphim said, ‘about Cal.’
‘Cal?’
‘Can you tell me where I can find him?’
‘He’s at a wedding.’
‘A wedding. Ah. Could you perhaps furnish me with address?’
‘Yes. Of course.’
‘We’ve got a little something for Cal too. Lucky man.’
1
Not that a little lunacy would have been noticeable in such a heady atmosphere. Norman Kellaway’s ambition for his daughter’s wedding day seemed to have been upped a notch for every inch her waist-line had swelled. The ceremony had been grand, but necessarily decorous; the reception, however, was a triumph of excess over good taste. The hall had been decorated from floor to ceiling with streamers and paper lanterns; ropes of coloured lights were looped along the walls and in the trees out at the back of the hall. The bar was supplied with beer, spirits and liqueurs sufficient to intoxicate a modest army; food was in endless supply, carried to the tables of those content to sit and gorge by a dozen harassed waitresses.
Even with all the doors and windows open, the hall soon grew hot as Hell, the heat in part generated by those guests who’d thrown inhibitions to the wind and were dancing to a deafening mixture of country and western and rock and roll, the latter bringing comical exhibitions from several of the older guests, applauded ferociously from all sides.
At the edge of the crowd, lingering by the door that led out behind the hall, the groom’s younger brother, accompanied by two young bucks who’d both at some point